


I'm With Stupid

by delires



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Humour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delires/pseuds/delires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is probably the most ridiculous situation that Arthur has ever gotten into and so, unsurprisingly, Eames has a large part to play in getting him here...</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm With Stupid

This is probably the most ridiculous situation that Arthur has ever gotten into and so, unsurprisingly, Eames had a large part to play in getting him here.

The man they are hiding from is huge. He is Russian. There are three gleaming machetes hanging above his fire place. In stark contrast, Arthur and Eames are unarmed. Arthur is in _jeans_ for Christ’s sake.

If he inhales any more dust, Arthur is almost certainly going to sneeze, which will mean alerting the Russian to their presence, which, in turn, will most likely result in the two of them being hacked to pieces and delivered back to Dom in a Ziploc bag. Arthur is fairly certain that this would constitute failure. He clenches his hands into fists and tries to take comfort in the fact that at least Dom is not physically present to bear witness to this spectacular lapse in his judgement.

The floorboards creak beneath the Russian’s weight as he strolls around the bed, oblivious to the two men who are hiding beneath it.

“Arthur,” Eames actually dares to whisper into Arthur’s ear, as though completely unaware of the heavy, Russian-filled boots that have paused just inches away from their faces. “There are _spiders_ under here.”

Arthur is busy holding his breath, so as not to inhale the dust. He offers Eames the sort of glare which would make a bloodthirsty dragon quiver with fear.

It has remarkably little effect on Eames, who simply widens his eyes as if Arthur is being wilfully ignorant.

“There are a _lot_ of spiders,” Eames reiterates.

The Russian moves away, his boots creaking to the far end of the room, and Arthur feels that it is worth the risk to snap, as quietly as possible, “Oh fuck off, Eames. You are not going to tell me that you are afraid of spiders now. Give me a fucking break.”

“One of them just crawled on my _face_ ,” Eames hisses back and he has the gall to sound defensive about it.

Arthur wants to punch him, and only resists this urge because attempting to punch Eames would almost certainly result in noises which would in no way be helpful to their current predicament. Arthur is opening his mouth, with the sole purpose of telling Eames to shut his, when he is interrupted by the sinister tickle of spider legs, creeping along his hairline.

It is to Eames’s utmost credit that he manages to get a hand over Arthur’s mouth in time to muffle the noise which Arthur’s instincts force him to make. Unfortunately, Eames does not quite manage to prevent Arthur from hitting his head against the mattress slats above them when he bucks automatically, trying to dislodge the spider.

There is a tense moment where they both freeze, Eames with his hand still clamped over Arthur’s mouth. They are waiting for the seemingly inevitable string of Russian cursing, which any Soviet spy worth his salt would surely spew forth at the discovery of an American and an Englishman hiding together under his bed.

There is another creak of the floorboards, and then the unmistakeable click of a cigarette lighter. The Russian’s boots thud heavily as he leaves the room, trailing the scent of tobacco behind him.

Eames exhales the breath he has been holding. He knocks the spider away from Arthur’s forehead with gentle fingers. Only then does he remove his hand, very gingerly, from Arthur’s mouth.

Arthur sneezes.

“Bless you,” Eames whispers, and Arthur cannot even believe how ridiculous this is.

“I can’t believe how ridiculous this is,” Arthur whispers back, scrubbing his fingers frantically against his skin, chasing away phantom spider footsteps. “What the hell are we going to do? We can’t stay here all day.”

“You don’t say,” Eames says, sarcastically, his breath gusting hot against Arthur’s ear. “And here I was thinking that this would be an absolutely lovely way for us to spend an afternoon together. We could get to know each other. We could _bond._ ”

Arthur bites his tongue, listening to the creaking of the footsteps in the next room and it is not until he hears the noise of a television being turned on, the tinny chatter of a talk show, that he feels it is safe to respond.

“You’re such an asshole,” he bites out. “This is all your fault.”

“Why, thank you, Arthur. That is _immensely_ helpful,” Eames snaps back. He places his hands flat on the dusty floor and starts to drag his body towards the daylight. Arthur catches his upper arm before he can get far.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Arthur tilts his head, trying to peer towards the door, half-expecting to see those Russian boots running towards them, the tip of a machete dragging scratches into the floorboards.

Eames twists to glance awkwardly over his shoulder at Arthur. He says, “I was attempting to escape. Is there a reason you’re preventing me?”

“Are you insane?” Arthur asks.

“We could make a break for it,” Eames says, and Arthur becomes quite convinced of Eames’s insanity. He tightens his grip on Eames’s arm, because insane people are dangerous to both themselves and to others.

“Did you see the size of him? We wouldn’t get two steps,” Arthur explains, slowly and clearly so that Eames can understand. “Besides, the kitchen cabinets are probably full of Kalashnikovs.”

Eames gives him a disapproving look. He says, “Now, that’s just stereotyping.”

“This isn’t a dream,” Arthur growls and Eames sighs, rolling his eyes, melodramatic and infuriating.

“Look,” he begins, “as thrilling as it is to be trapped here with you under the bed of a murderer-“

Arthur speaks right over him, whispering furiously.

“Do you know how I can tell that it isn’t a dream? Because I remember every detail of how you dragged my sorry ass in here. I remember you promising, _promising_ me that you knew _for a fact_ that this guy would be away on business until _at least_ next Tuesday, and--”

“Jesus, Arthur. Fine. You’re the martyr. Give it a rest now, will you?” Eames snaps. “Get off me. I’m not going anywhere.”

He tugs his arm free from Arthur’s grasp and slides further back into the darkness again, dislodging fresh dust particles which tickle unpleasantly against Arthur’s lips.

“We’re here now,” Eames says. “We might as well make the best of it.”

Arthur stares at him incredulously.

“Make the-? Do you actually fucking hear yourself when you talk?” he says. “We’re stuck under a bed, in a room full of dust and spiders, with a Russian wielding an AK-47 on the other side of the wall.”

Eames clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, in a tut of disapproval.

“To be fair, we only know for a fact that he owns machetes. The assault rifles are probably just a figment of your imagination.”

Arthur ignores this and continues, “How exactly do you suggest that we make the best of this?”

There is a pause. Eames knocks away a cobweb which is hanging from a mattress slat, a little too close to his face.

“I don’t know,” he says, eventually.

“Right.”

Arthur feels a little vindicated, but it is a somewhat hollow victory when you consider the circumstances which still stand. In the next room, the Russian switches channels and cracks open the ring pull on a drinks can, sounding very much as though he is putting down roots. Arthur’s cell phone vibrates in his pocket. When he pulls it out and stares at the screen, there is a message from Dom, asking for their estimated time of arrival back at the warehouse. Arthur sighs. He cannot even bring himself to reply to the message.

Next to him, Eames begins, “I spy, with my little-”

“No,” Arthur interrupts firmly.

* * * * * *

“Okay,” Arthur says, eyes narrowed as he peers out into the room, trying to judge distances and angles. “Realistically, what are our escape routes?”

Eames clears his throat.

“Front door.”

“No good.” Arthur shakes his head. “The TV is right in front of it.”

“Bedroom window.”

“We’re six stories up. Don’t fancy our chances.”

Eames shifts his weight a little higher on his elbows, looking at Arthur through the gloom.

“So what does that leave us?”

Arthur runs through all the possibilities in his head. He only comes up with one clear contender for their course of action. There is just one viable option, even though it pains Arthur to acknowledge it.

Arthur says, “We wait it out.”

Eames snorts at him.

“That’s the best strategy you can come up with?” he scoffs.

Arthur closes his eyes and draws on all his resources of calm to remain the very epitome of Zen.

“We wait it out,” Arthur repeats.

* * * * * *

They talk, because there is really very little else to do under a bed. Eames starts it.

“Where did you grow up?” Eames says, in as conversational a tone as he can manage whilst he is whispering and is propped awkwardly up on his forearms, with the crown of his head just brushing the underside of a bed. Arthur is fiddling with his cell phone, trying to compose a message to Dom which will both offer reassurance and yet give away none of the shameful details of Arthur’s current situation.

“I thought you were joking when you said you wanted us to bond,” Arthur says, and is surprised when, instead of replying with some fresh bullshit, Eames simply rubs a hand across his face and keeps quiet, holding onto his thoughts like an adult. It makes Arthur kick himself, because this time Eames is managing to be the bigger man. Arthur scowls; he does not like to be shown up.

“I grew up just outside of Dallas,” Arthur answers, only a little begrudgingly.

Eames stares at him, and says, “You hide that well.”

“You aren’t the only one who can pull off accents,” Arthur says. “Besides, we moved to New York when I was thirteen.”

Eames seems to accept this explanation.

“What is Dallas like?” he asks politely.

“Hot,” Arthur says. “Where did you grow up?”

“Oxford, mostly. With a couple of years each in South Africa and Hong Kong.”

“How very colonial,” Arthur remarks drily, which makes Eames smirk.

“What do you miss most about Dallas?” is Eames’s next question, and Arthur does not even think before answering. A dull ache of hunger is curling in Arthur’s stomach. His brain is already primed to assault him with images of his favourite barbeque joint, in all its smoky, sticky, rowdy glory.

“Real pulled pork sandwiches,” Arthur says, and does an admirable job of not drooling on himself as he does so. Beside him, Eames frowns.

“What is pulled pork?” he asks.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m British,” Eames protests and Arthur shakes his head.

“You’re such a philistine,” Arthur mutters, because he honestly is not going to get into barbequing technique whilst essentially in the middle of a siege situation. If he tilts his head, Arthur can just about make out the glint of sunlight hitting the blades of the machetes through the open doorway. 

But then Eames begins humming the _Dallas_ theme song, so Arthur jabs him in the ribs with an elbow and Eames only just manages to stifle a chuckle. Arthur squints across the room once more, scoping out the door. When he is sure that they are still clear, he twists his torso slightly towards Eames so that he can see him better through the gloom.

“Alright, fine,” Arthur concedes. “So, pulled pork—”

 

* * * * * *

“It all tastes the same to me.”

“I could slap you, Arthur. I could physically fucking slap you right now,” Eames growls, and the tendons in his neck are bulging a little with the sheer effort of keeping his voice down. Arthur shrugs, a tricky movement to make when all of your weight is propped up on your forearms.

“Just my opinion,” he says.

“Well, your opinion is wrong,” Eames snaps, stubbornly. “Different types of tea are made from different leaves,” Eames continues. “They have different notes. Different flavours. Like wine.”

Arthur stifles a yawn. The dust and the dimness and the boredom are putting him to sleep.

“I always drink Earl Grey,” Eames explains.

“Because you’re a pretentious dick?” Arthur suggests.

“Because it tastes the best.”

“They taste the same,” Arthur repeats.

“It’s the bergamot which makes all the difference. It gives it this sort of, I don’t know, a sort of _floral_ —”

“God,” Arthurs says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “You are _so—”_

* * * * * *

They switch to word games, because although talk is cheap, they can’t seem to talk without it devolving into arguments, and trying to keep their voices to a whisper is just too difficult.

The Russian has a very loud, very honking laugh which he blasts out in repeated bursts at his television set. It sets Arthur’s teeth on edge. On top of that, Arthur has another message from Dom, slightly sterner this time and full of veiled threats that he will Take Immediate Action if Arthur does not respond soon. So, Arthur composes a careful reply which reads:

 _Safe, but temporarily detained. Will be back asap._

Arthur reads the message three times and then deletes the part about being ‘safe’. After a pause, he adds the word back in, hitting the send button before he can reconsider.

Eames is still an uncomfortable weight beside him, the fabric of his sleeve just brushing against Arthur’s. He can clearly read the phone screen from his position.

“Your turn,” Eames prompts when Arthur has finished lying to Dom. He nudges his shoulder into Arthur’s in a way that is entirely unnecessary and Arthur scowls, tucking his phone away.

“What letter are we up to?” he asks.

“S.”

Arthur sighs. He runs a hand absently over his hair, to straighten it out; it has nothing to do with checking for spiders.

“The minister’s cat,” he says, “is a...sibilant cat.”

“That’s not possible,” says Eames. “The word is ‘cat’. I can’t think of anything _less_ sibilant.”

“I don’t care,” Arthur snaps, “Cats hiss. That’s good enough. Move on.”

“The minister’s cat is a treacherous cat,” Eames replies promptly.

Arthur’s phone buzzes again. He is in the process of digging it back out when Eames nudges him again, almost throwing Arthur off balance.

“Your letter is U.”

“I know. I’m thinking,” Arthur blurts, perhaps a little too loudly for Eames actually has the audacity to shush him. Arthur lowers his voice back to a whisper because while he is eager for this nonsense to end, he is too competitive to not see a game properly through to the end. “The minister’s cat is an unbearable cat,” he says, and Eames hums thoughtfully, as though he is interested by Arthur’s choice, as though he is actually enjoying this.  

“The minister’s cat is a voluptuous cat.”

Dom’s message reads: _Bring E back in one piece. We can’t run this job without him._

Arthur grits his teeth and says, “The minister’s cat is a...wet cat.”

Eames tuts at him. “You aren’t even trying now.”

“Make me,” Arthur says. “You just make me try.”

 

* * * * * *

“They are trying, though. That’s exactly my point about Cambodia,” Eames says, gesturing enthusiastically with one hand, and Arthur has to lean away from him, because there is really no space for enthusiasm between the four legs of a bed frame.

They are talking again, because it now seems the lesser of two evils.

“The infrastructure’s practically non-existent there now, you understand,” Eames continues. “But that’s what you get if you take an entire class of people and attempt to simply eradicate them.”

Arthur is quiet, nodding in the darkness.

“It was the doctors, the lawyers, the teachers,” Eames continues, “people who were...well. Not necessarily the _backbone_ of the country, that’s not really fair to say, but perhaps the...cerebral cortex. Of course your society’s going to fall apart without that.”

Arthur shifts a little. The floorboards are so hard beneath them; his hips are beginning to ache. He says, “Wasn’t that the entire aim, though, to control people by destroying those fundamental societal constructs?”

“Obviously.” Eames sayss. “It was exactly that. So, no wonder the infrastructure is fucked now. People there are so busy just trying to pull their lives back together again.”

Arthur has only paid one visit to Cambodia himself and that was purely to collect information from a journalist friend who was staying in the slickest hotel that Siem Reap had to offer. Arthur is well-travelled, but in the way of international business travel, which somehow feels not quite legitimate.

“How long did you live there?” Arthur asks and Eames scratches his jaw.

“Well. I first went there for a few weeks on this pseudo-humanitarian mission when I was an undergrad. I thought it was altruism. It was just ignorance,” Eames says. “But, the last time I was there was for about four, five months. I stayed in the South. I did a lot of work there with a guy called Carlos Martel.”

“Yeah, I know him,” Arthur says. “He’s good. We – Cobb and I – we did some work with him in Cuba a couple of years ago.”

“I haven’t seen him in a long time. Does he still have that—?” Eames makes a vague gesture towards his own face.

“The _moustache_?” Arthur asks, and is surprised to find himself smiling.

“Yes. Bloody hell. That moustache...”

Arthur wrinkles his nose. “I know. I don’t know why anyone would want to—”

 

* * * * * *

 

“I can’t stand Austen,” Arthur says, wrinkling his nose. “Too twee.”

“No. I’ve never even made it to the end of one myself. I start and then have to put it straight back down again,” Eames agrees. He is lying on his side now, propped up on one elbow so that he can watch Arthur uninhibited. Arthur can feel the weight of Eames’s stare prickling at his skin like spider legs.

“I can stomach Bronte,” Eames adds thoughtfully.

“Which one?” Arthur asks.

“Any of them. All of them. I find them fairly interchangeable.”

Arthur glares at him.

“You can’t say that. Emily’s easily the best. _Wuthering Heights_ is by far the most revolutionary.”

“Well, that’s a big can of worms you’re opening there. It all depends on how you define ‘revolution’. I prefer _Jane Eyre_.”

“ _Jane Eyre_ is one of Cobb’s favourite books.”

“Really? Why?”

“I have no idea.”

Eames pauses, to consider this.

“I’m quite partial to Waugh,” he says, eventually.

“I like Steinbeck,” Arthur offers.

Eames lets out a soft snort and rolls over to lie on his back.

“You would like Steinbeck,” he says.

“You would like Waugh,” Arthur returns and Eames grins.

“Touché.”

* * * * * *

“I wanted to be a rock star,” Arthur says, which is apparently not the answer Eames had been expecting when he’d asked what Arthur had wanted to be when he was younger.

“No,” Eames says, incredulous.

Arthur shakes his head, with a self-deprecating smile.

“Honestly,” he says. “I did. Yeah.”

Eames is still lying on his back, flat out on the floorboards. He tilts his head a little, so that he can look at Arthur in fascination. His eyes are bright, as though he is seeing something new for the first time. His lips are curling slowly up into a full-blown smile.

“Did you make your parents buy you a guitar?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“Did you start a band in your garage?”

“Yep,” Arthur smiles. “That too.”

Eames laughs, breathy and light, staring back up towards the mattress. Arthur shifts position a little, trying to dislodge the ache in his elbows. He considers manoeuvring his body into the same position as Eames’s and decides that it must be far more comfortable. Arthur pushes his weight onto one side, turning his hips. He eases himself carefully onto his back, pausing only momentarily when a floorboard creaks beneath him. Eames shuffles a little to make room and then settles again with a little cough.

“How about you?” Arthur asks Eames. “What did you want to be?”

Eames says, “I was going to be a rugby player. For years I thought that was what I was going to do. I nearly failed my degree because I spent so much time face down in the mud instead of writing essays.”

Eames turns his head towards Arthur and Arthur automatically copies him, laying his cheek to the floor so that he can see Eames’s face. Eames taps his own temple with a fingertip, where a little break interrupts the line of one eyebrow.

“That’s how I got this scar, you see? Bad knock with an elbow,” he says. Arthur nods.

They had both worn T-shirts in a bid to look less-conspicuous whilst they were breaking and entering. Arthur seizes the neck of his T-shirt and tugs it down a little, enough to expose the skin just beneath his collarbone, where there is a thin line of silvery scar tissue.

“I have this one,” he says.

Eames reaches out the same fingertip which was just against his temple. He strokes it over Arthur’s bared skin, gently feeling out the mark which he is not able to see in the dark. The touch sends a little shiver prickling through Arthur’s flesh.

“What’s that from?” Eames asks, moving his hand away.

“Ex-girlfriend,” Arthur says. “I pissed her off and she started throwing stuff from the kitchen at me. Crockery and shit. She got in a lucky hit.”

“What had you done?”

Arthur hesitates, but only for a moment. While he could easily palm Eames off with a lie, he is too old now to keep avoiding saying it out loud to people.

“She caught me with another guy,” Arthur admits. “Totally legitimate excuse for violence, really.”

He stares up at the wooden slats, spaced across the mattress like prison bars. The grain of the wood runs in long swirls, organic and imperfect. The room is very quiet. There is only the muted sound of the Russian’s television set, buzzing away in the distance.

“Oh,” Eames says, and that is all he says.

Arthur swallows. He might be too old to have stopped caring so much what people think of him, but telling somebody new never seems to get less awkward. Arthur is not surprised that Eames does not know quite what to say, but he can’t really account for the way that Eames’s lack of response makes him feel angrier than usual. Perhaps it is their proximity and this inability to get away from one another.

Eames makes a noise with his mouth as though he is about to speak. Arthur keeps his eyes fixed on the mattress slats, glad that he cannot see Eames’s face in all its awkward glory, with those messed up teeth and the scar which makes him look like a thug.

Though, when Eames speaks, he does not sound awkward at all. His voice is smooth as he says, “I nearly got kicked off of my secondary school rugby team for exactly the same thing.”

And Arthur’s mouth goes a little dry, because whatever else he’d always thought about Eames, he would never have expected that they would actually have things, important things, _this thing_ , in common.

“Oh,” Arthur says, and that is all he says.

* * * * * *

“Oh,” he says and grins. “That is too easy. It’s a classic.”

Eames narrows his eyes. He nudges a foot against Arthur’s ankle, not quite a kick, but close to one.

“If it’s so easy,” he says, “then stop procrastinating and—”

“ _Oh, God I think I'm falling_ ,” Arthur quotes, “ _Out of the sky, I close my eyes. Heaven help me._ ” He smiles. “I told you. Easy. What else have you got?”

“Alright,” Eames says and licks his lips thoughtfully. Grinning around the words, he recites, “ _You always taught me right from wrong. I need your help, daddy please be strong._ ”

“Er,” Arthur says, testing the line against the tune in his head. “ _I may be young at heart. But I know what I'm saying_.”  

Eames makes a noise of approval.

“Good show, good show.” He smirks. “How about, _I made it through the wilderness. Somehow I made it through_.”

Arthur has to press his lips together to keep from laughing. He makes his tone mock-serious when he replies, “ _Didn't know how lost I was until I found you._ ” Eames grins at him.

They are both lying on their sides now, face to face, and so Eames seems awfully close when he whispers, “ _Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting_.”

This makes Arthur pause. “That’s not Madonna,” he frowns.

“I know,” Eames says. “I’m testing you. You’re too good at Madonna. This one might just be long enough before your time for it to catch you out.”

“Before my time? It’s the fucking Beatles, man. Time doesn’t even apply.”

“Did you just call me ‘man’?” Eames asks. 

“Shut up. Let me think. I know this,” Arthur says. “ _Little darling_ , _it feel_ — No. Fuck. It...”

Arthur closes his eyes, breathes out a steadying breath. He hums the tune softly, trying hard to remember. When he opens his eyes again, Eames is watching him and the words suddenly flow into place.

“ _It seems like years since it’s been clear_ ,” Arthur says. He smiles and continues, singing the next lyrics in a whisper, “ _Here comes the sun, doo do doo do. Here comes the sun and I say it’s alright_.”

Eames’s crooked teeth gleam at him through the shadows.

“Take that, bitch,” Arthur says, triumphant.

* * * * * *

When Eames kisses him, it is not really a surprise. They have been building up to it for a while now, lying side by side beneath the Russian’s bed, exhausted of conversation and parlour games, with nothing to look at but each other. Probably, they have actually been building up to it for far longer than that. Probably, they have been building up to it since the first time they met, when Eames had shaken Arthur’s hand too hard and grinned too wide and Arthur had presumed that he’d hated Eames on sight.

Now, Eames’s strong palm cups Arthur’s hip and his fingertips are warm and dry, where they creep beneath the edge of Arthur’s T-shirt. The muscle of Eames’s chest is firm beneath Arthur’s hands. When Arthur parts his lips and Eames’s tongue slides against his own, all thoughts of murderers and assault rifles fly clear out of Arthur’s head to be replaced only by an overwhelming feeling of security.

This is ironic, really, considering that even as Arthur is struck with the realisation that what is happening here between them might just be fantastically important, Eames is pulling away from him and there is a darker shadow on the floor between them, and Arthur notices the steel-capped boots standing right next to the bed at the same time as he hears the blade of a machete sing in the air.

He and Eames roll apart, as the mattress caves above them in a screech of springs.

Eames shouts, “Now!” He uses all of his strength to shove the bed upwards, and Arthur finds that he is pushing too, his palms planted besides Eames’s.

Together they thrust the mattress up. The edge of it catches the Russian in the chest and he staggers backwards enough for them to scramble up, away from the bed. Arthur smashes an elbow into the Russian’s face, tries to slam a fist against the side of his head, but a strong hand closes around his wrist, jerking him forwards, making him lose his centre of gravity.

This man is giant, monstrous, bigger than either of them, but Eames has him from behind now, an arm looped around his throat in a chokehold. The Russian’s fingers claw at Eames’s grip.

Arthur pulls free and runs for it, hearing Eames’s grunt of pain and then a dull thud as the Russian breaks the hold. The heavy boots are like thunder at Arthur’s heels. The Russian’s fingertips brush the back of Arthur’s arm, just shy of getting a decent grasp, as, from the bedroom, Eames yells Arthur’s name.

It turns out that Arthur was right about the Kalashnikov in the kitchen cupboard. But luckily, he gets his hands on it before the Russian does.

 

* * * * * *

 

“What _the hell_ happened to you?”

Dom is staring at them, appalled. They are both covered from head to toe in dust. Eames has a split lip. There are bloodstains on his jeans. Arthur’s hair is a mess, and one of the arms has been torn clean off his T-shirt.

“You said you were _safe,_ ” Dom says.

Arthur rubs awkwardly at his bare shoulder. “That wasn’t entirely the truth,” he admits.

After despatching with the Russian, there had been the wail of sirens in the distance. Unsurprising, considering the shouting and bursts of gunfire, which had surely been audible to every other apartment in the block. There had been no time for Arthur to tear the place apart, searching for the memory stick of encrypted data which they had been after from the start. That was really the icing on the cake. For their trouble, they had come away empty-handed.

Arthur feels like a fool. It does not help matters that Eames’s T-shirt is one of those ludicrous ‘I’m with stupid’ affairs, illustrated with a huge cartoon finger that is currently pointing in Arthur’s direction.

Dom shakes his head, frowning at Arthur, and Arthur can predict what Dom’s next question will be even before Dom asks it.

“Did you at least get what you went in there for?”

Arthur sighs. He almost wishes that he was still trapped under that bed with Eames, so as not to have to explain the whole debacle to Dom. It is perhaps this thought, and the memory of the warm press of Eames’s lips which make Arthur so confused when he feels Eames’s fingers nudging unexpectedly at his own. For a terrible moment, Arthur thinks that Eames is trying to hold his hand, right here, in front of Dom, and his heart lurches into his throat. But then Eames is pulling away again, and Arthur can feel the slick plastic of a memory stick pressing against his palm.

When Arthur glances at him, Eames winks.

Arthur curls his fingers around the stick. Dom is looking at him expectantly, so Arthur nods curtly.

“Of course we did,” he says, while Eames smirks beside him.

 

 


End file.
